


Swan Song

by Carmarthen Juvenilia (Carmarthen)



Series: Idiograph [2]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Genre: Infidelity, M/M, Satisfied Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-17
Updated: 2011-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen%20Juvenilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Bill roam the taverns of Tortuga; Jack won't say why. (Idiograph II)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swan Song

**Author's Note:**

> Not consistent with later canon.
> 
> Thanks to Elke Tanzer and mercuriosity for betas.

Jack sat on the deck of the _Black Pearl,_ filing down the point of a stingray spine against a piece of stone. He whistled tunelessly under his breath, occasionally singing a snatch of verse or swearing as he accidentally drew blood. Jack was still favoring his arm, Bill noticed, but he'd had a look at it that morning and the tattoo was healing up nicely.

"Bootstrap?"

"Captain?"

Jack looked up and grinned. "There's been a change of plans. Set us a course for Tortuga, if you will."

"Aye, Captain." Bill smiled at Jack, puzzled. Jack frequently inspired feelings of puzzlement in him.

Jack gave the stingray spine one last swipe with his stone and surveyed his handiwork. "Yo ho," Jack murmured, smiling to himself as he deftly tied the now-dull stingray spine into his hair.

Bill shook his head slowly as he made his way to the bow of the ship. It was no good asking what Jack was after when he was off in his own little world like that.

* * *

Tortuga, when they reached it, was the same as it had always been. Bill had never been comfortable there; he still had too much of the respectable merchant in him, somewhat to his chagrin. Jack always took to Tortuga like a duck to water.

"Jack?"

"Hmm?" Jack turned with a jangle of beads, his hands and hips arrested in mid-sway.

"Why are we in Tortuga? I thought we were sailing for Port Royal, see if we could unload some of our cargo."

Jack smiled, his lashes lowering for a moment in a secretive look. "Wouldn't you like to know, love." His mouth looked rouged as a woman's in the rays of the setting sun.

Bill looked away and sighed, clenching his fists hard enough to dig his nails into his palms. There was no getting anything out of Jack when he was like this.

"Come on, mate," Jack said, looping his arm through Bill's. "The taverns are calling."

Bill lost count of the smoky, none-too-clean establishments they visited, all heavy with the smells of whores, opium, and rum, not necessarily in that order. Bill wasn't opposed to any of those things on principle, but he was tired and irritable, and Jack still hadn't told him what the hell they were looking for.

"Jack," he tried again, "tell me what we're doing here."

"Ah!" Jack cried, with an air of triumph. His hands fluttered in the direction of yet another dark, smoky corner full of scoundrels at their leisure.

Bill thought it looked exactly like all the other dark, smoky corners full of scoundrels. "Jack," he said, very patiently. "What in blazes d'you see?"

"An old...friend," Jack said, and the corners of his mouth curved up. "Well, not precisely a friend. But not a not friend." He nodded to the tavern keeper and shoved a mug of rum at Bill. "Wait here, mate. I don't want you mucking things up. And have a bloody drink!"

Bill watched Jack wobble over to the corner and sit down across from a fellow in black. He looked to be at least forty, a hard drinker, and he had a look in his eyes that Bill didn't like. Still, if he was a not not friend of Jack's, Bill supposed he ought to reserve judgment.

Jack and the other man were still talking -- and drinking -- half an hour later. Bill eyed his mug blearily, and thought longingly of a soft and relatively vermin-free bed. Finally Jack stood, leaned over the table, and clasped hands with his not not friend. As Jack turned towards Bill, a positively bone-chilling smirk spread across the stranger's face.

Bill shivered and looked down at his mug, suddenly losing the desire to drink. Jack knew what he was after. He always did.

"What was all your gabbing about?" Bill asked when Jack rejoined him.

"I'll tell you in the morning. Right now I've a mind for a tumble and a sleep, not nes- nesir- necessar'ly in that order."

Jack stumbled, and Bill reached out and caught him without thinking. Even reeking of rum and sweat, the weight of Jack's body against own was disturbingly pleasant. "I think you'd best sleep first," Bill muttered, slinging Jack's arm over his shoulders. He was a big enough man, and strong, but Jack was no slip of a girl, and Bill was not looking forward to getting Jack up the stairs.

"No," Jack mumbled into Bill's arm. "Want to sleep on m'ship."

Bill sighed, the thought of dragging Jack through the streets of Tortuga even less appealing than that of getting him upstairs. "Well, at least try to walk, you bloody git," he grumbled, prodding Jack in the ribs as he half-dragged him out the door. "You're not a feather, y'know."

Jack smiled beatifically at him in the moonlight outside, looking vaguely confused to find Bill under his arm. "You're a sight for sore eyes, William Turner."

Bill blushed, to his dismay, and was grateful for the darkness that hid his face. "And you're drunk," he said gruffly.

"Like water," Jack said cheerfully.

* * *

"Careful with me hat," Jack mumbled, sitting on his bunk as he watched Bill arrange his effects neatly on Jack's sea-chest.

Bill just sighed inwardly. He was all for the occasional bout of inebriated revelry, but it was unlike Jack to get this soused in public. 'Tweren't safe. He tugged at Jack's boots while Jack just sat there watching him. Bloody useless bastard when he was in his cups, if also rather endearingly friendly. Maybe a too endearingly friendly, Bill amended as Jack wrapped an arm around his neck and pressed up against him.

Jack's breath was warm on his neck, and Bill wasn't sure whether he liked that or not. He had a wife and son back in England, and Jack was--Jack. Best not to.

He finally got Jack's frock coat and waistcoat off, no thanks to Jack, and stood. "Goodnight, Jack," he said. "No doubt you'll be a right terror in the morning."

He had turned to go when Jack's hand on his wrist stopped him.

"Give us a kiss, William," Jack whispered, winking up at Bill. He held out his hands: good strong seaman's hands, callused, tar under the nails, eternally ingrained with dirt. They were surprisingly graceful hands, for all that.

Bill was tired of resisting.

He leaned over, set his hands on either side of Jack, and kissed him. Jack's mouth opened perfectly under his, rough and intoxicating. Jack's hands clenched in Bill's hair, pulling him down, and with a surprised grunt, Bill fell onto the bunk next to Jack.

He felt like he was drowning, with Jack crouching next to him in the darkness, the matted, salty tangle of Jack's hair like a curtain around them. Jack's fingers were unbuckling his belt, too nimbly for a man as drunk as Jack seemed, but Bill himself was too drunk to care as he arched helplessly into Jack's sure touch.

It was a good thing Jack knew what he was about, Bill thought with a touch of terror as Jack's mouth did wonderful things no decent person ought to know about.

* * *

Bill woke in a bunk, not a hammock. He was pressed up against the wall by another body, a lean, hard body with a jangling mass of hair.

"G'morning," Jack Sparrow said, giving Bill a sleepy look. "Y'sleep well?"

"Jack...." Bill narrowed his eyes against a blush, the previous night's events springly clearly into his memory. "Exactly how soused were you last night?"

Jack shrugged, grinned; flash of gold teeth and rattle of beads. "No more than usual, wot? Takes more than a little rum to put Captain Jack Sparrow out!"

He dropped a quick kiss on Bill's cheek and then swung out of the bunk, unselfconciously bare.

Bill buried his face in Jack's pillow and groaned. He'd been played like a bloody fish on a line.

"Cheer up, mate!" Jack said, blowing Bill a kiss over his shoulder as he pulled on his trousers. "You're not the first person who's tumbled into my bunk with the help of a bit o' rum."

"Lovely," Bill muttered. "That makes me feel so much better."

"I've got us a first mate," Jack said offhandedly as he pulled on his trousers. "Barbossa. I sailed with him on the Albion some years back. Granted, neither of us had turned to piracy yet, and we were rather different men--" He paused, and looked as close to sober and thoughtful as he ever did.

"Jack," Bill said, "why do we need to sign on a new first mate? Why not one of our own crew?"

"Er," said Jack, "can't, really. See, I've a mind to go after Aztec gold, and Barbossa is a dab hand at the helm. I can't be doing all the steering, you know, and he's a fine seaman."

Bill stared at him. "Aztec gold." He stared some more for good measure, keeping his face as blank as he could. "Not Cortez--"

"Right." Jack grinned, half-apologetically, and held out his hip flask. "Fancy a drink, love?"

"No," Bill said, turning his stare up a notch closer to 'glare.' "And just when were you planning on tellin' me all this, Jack?"

Jack drew himself up to his full height and waved a hand airily. "Oh, I was planning on it."

"Jaysus." Bill shook his head again.

"Eventually," Jack added.

Bill chucked one of his boots at Jack, who ducked nimbly, hair flying, leaving the boot to thud against the bulkhead.

"You'll have to do better than that, mate--"

Bill finished for him. "Oh, aye, you're Captain Jack Sparrow. I know that already."

Jack finished buckling his belt, and laughed. "Indeed I am, and you'd best not forget it." He opened the door to his cabin and ducked out, whistling the tune to an obscene song.

Bill buried his face in his hands as Jack's daft laughter rang in his ears. Captain Jack Sparrow. Christ. Jack had managed to distract him from the original subject, quite effectively.

The news that they'd be sailing with this Barbossa gave him a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. Bill was not ordinarily given to dire predictions, but he was also a man who believed in making exceptions when they were warranted.

This would all end in trouble, he was sure.


End file.
